Installing, interconnecting, verifying, provisioning and activating state of the art telecommunications equipment are tasks that, to date, have largely been performed manually. Even for consolidated network elements with many nodes and inter-node links, current practice requires technicians to connect the numerous inter-node links, to provision individual ports using a network management interface, and to manually test the connectivity. For example, certain large capacity multi-stage switches are consolidated network elements with many shelves of switch matrices in each of a plurality of nodes. Each shelf comprises a plurality of port cards, each having a number of receive and transmit ports. For example, a bidirectional clos-like network switch with 8 port cards per I/O shelf, each of the 8 port cards having 8 receive and 8 transmit ports, with 5 I/O shelves and 20% expansion in the core, requires 768 inter-node links that interconnect 1536 ports. Each port has to be provisioned, and each inter-node link has to be tested.
The increasing complexity of consolidated network elements further contributes to the time required to provision such switches. Demand for versatile and interoperable equipment has led to the desire to integrate nodes from different manufacturers into consolidated network elements. The provisioning of a port to compensate for different requirements dependent on the characteristics of a node the port receives data from, adds complexity to the configuration of consolidated network elements. For example, protection schemes, and connection management requirements for inter-node links, may depend on the make of the originating equipment, the product line, and whether an inter-node link is provisioned to use a proprietary transfer protocol. The growing number of constraints on inter-node links, is also increasing the number of tests required for each consolidated network element. Further still, bandwidth allocation schemes and the interconnection of inter-node links to form consolidated signaling channels impose new constraints on adjacency of strands, strand bundles, and shelves.
It is also known in the art of optical transmission systems, that relatively inexpensive transmitters e.g. parallel optical interfaces (POIs) can be used over single mode strands of optical fibers, for very short reach (a few hundred meters). These strands may be bundled as single mode or multi-mode optical fibers (such as parallel very short reach (PVSR) strand bundles. While these offer an attractive solution to inter-nodal linkage, a number of problems complicate deploying bundles of single mode fiber in consolidated network elements. First, the requirement for testing each fiber strand in the bundle is onerous. Whereas prior art consolidated network elements had relatively few connectors, bundles of 12 strands in a network switch of the previous example yields 7680 strands to verify. Moreover, the strands are bundled in a certain sequence and that sequence needs to be verified, to ensure that the bundle order is preserved at each end. There is currently no known way of automating the provisioning of bundles of single mode or multi-mode optical fiber strands as inter-node links.
Existing methods for configuring consolidated network elements require that a technician use a network management interface to specify receive and transmit port parameters, in dependence on the source of the inter-node link. Determination of the source of inter-node links in consolidated network elements requires that a set of test signals be set up, input and transmitted. Usually a technician will supply the test signals to controllers at opposite ends of an inter-node link so that a first end transmits the test message, and a second end receives the test message. If the received message matches the expected test message, the test is successful. The technician then applies parameters for the receive port, accordingly.
There therefore exists a need for a method for automating the provisioning of receive ports of interconnected nodes in a consolidated network element. There also exists a need of a message for enabling inter-node connection discovery, particularly for interconnected nodes in a consolidated network element that are interconnected using one or more bundles of optical fiber strands, where many strands need to be discovered and tested. There is also a need of a method for enabling inter-node connection discovery in collocated telecommunications equipment using messaging.